Nor Must We Forget That

Being Human Signifies, For Each One Of Us, Belonging To A Class, A Society, A Country, A Continent And A Civilization; And For Us European Earth-dwellers, The Adventure Played Out In The Heart Of The New World Signifies In The First Place That It Was Not Our World And That We Bear Responsibility For The Crime Of Its Destruction.

For Everything Is History: What Was Said Yesterday Is History, What Was Said A Minute Ago Is History. But, Above All, One Is Led To Misjudge The Present, Because Only The Study Of Historical Development Permits The Weighing And Evaluation Of The Interrelationships Among The Components Of The Present-day Society.

In The Old Days, People Used To Risk Their Lives In India Or In The Americas In Order To Bring Back Products Which Now Seem To Us To Have Been Of Comically Little Worth, Such As Brazilwood And Pepper, Which Added A New Range Of Sense Experience To A Civilization Which Had Never Suspected Its Own Insipidity... From These Same Lands Our Modern Marco Polos Now Bring Back The Moral Spices Of Which Our Society Feels An Increasing Need As It Is Conscious Of Sinking Further Into Boredom, But That This Time They Take The Form Of Photographs, Books, And Travelers Tales.

Our System Is The Height Of Absurdity, Since We Treat The Culprit Both As A Child, So As To Have The Right To Punish Him, And As An Adult, In Order To Deny Him Consolation.

Music Is A Language By Whose Means Messages Are Elaborated, That Such Messages Can Be Understood By The Many But Sent Out Only By Few, And That It Alone Among All The Languages Unites The Contradictory Character Of Being At Once Intelligible And Untranslatable - These Facts Make The Creator Of Music A Being Like The Gods.